NULGE, Ekiti govt set for showdown over payments

Members of the National Union of Local Government Employees (NULGE) has alleged threatened industrial disharmony in Ekiti State, following their allegation that the state governor ordered the suspension of three of their officials over alleged insubordination and indiscipline.

The NULGE officials claimed in a letter, signed by the secretary of the union, Mr Muyiwa Cole, that three of their officials in had been suspended allegedly on the orders of the governor, Mr Ayodele Fayose, and threatened that “the union wishes to inform your office of the threat to industrial peace this action may lead to if not curtailed on time.”

According to the letter, with reference: NULGE/EKS/151/Vol. 1/54, dated March 13, 2017, the deputy chairman of NULGE, Mr O. B. Olatunde “has been queried and suspended from service by the Local Government Service Commission along with the NULGE branch chairman of Ado Local Government, Alaketu Akeem while the NULGE branch chairman in Ijero Local Government Owodunni Olaoluwa, has been queried by the chairman of Ijero Local government.”

NULGE said in a statement attached to its letter that the suspension of the officials was because “the refusal of the union to divert the balance of workers’ July and August 2016 salary to pay furniture allowance to local government council chairmen.”

They said that the money amounted to N1,024,466,207.76 which they claimed the council chairmen had insisted that they wanted to use to “settle furniture allowance, 2016 leave bonus and October 2016 salary.”

But the chairman of the state’s Local Government Service Commission, Mr. Sola Omotosho, explained that there was no diversion of any fund in any sector of the local government service, saying the suspension of the deputy chairman of NULGE was as a result of indiscipline, saying that it was not true that he had been dismissed.

“The issue is not diversion of local government funds but a personal matter of discipline and insubordination on the part of Mr Olatunde, who seems to have forgotten that before becoming a union official, he was an employee of the state government.

“I am not a member of JAAC. But when their disagreement at a meeting cropped up, the governor had intervened and advised on how to disburse the available funds, which has always been short. But the Olatunde was openly rude to the governor and he directed that disciplinary action be taken against him,” Omotosho stated.

A source in Association of Local Governments said in reaction to the development that NULGE members had been begging the governor for forgiveness and we wonder how to reconcile all these.

The source said “in Joint Account Allocation Committee (JAAC), there are two sessions: Technical and plenary sessions. All the auditors and directors’ of administration in the council areas of the state, belong to the technical session and only the ALGON chairman in the state is the council chairman who attends the meeting.

“At one of the meetings, they agreed that since the accruing allocation has made salaries irregular, we agreed that one month, we’d pay net, which includes their own union dues, while the following month, we would pay with deductions made.

“In the month of January, they came up with an idea that since they would pay school fees and sundry pleas, that we should allow them to get the net whereas there should have been deductions in January. They pleaded that if they got the net, they’d be able to pay schools fees and so on. And we agreed.

“But that has become the cause of the current confusion because we agreed that they should be given net in January instead of deductions. This therefore left us with two deductions to be made, but they refused that we should continue with the existing arrangement, thereby creating a deadlock at the meeting.

“So from the available N1.4 billion, they want to take N1.1 billion. And this is in the face of the fact that we have pensioners, whose pay amounts to about N300 million. We still have the traditional rulers. So, with them there is no money for any other thing except their salary and this has created a lot of problems because the money coming is simply not enough. Local government political appointees, whose salaries amount to N84 million don’t even get paid because of the NULGE’s attitude.

“The governor intervened and said the council chairman should get part of their furniture allowances, let NULGE get their deduction and the remaining money, and we would set aside and add the next allocation to it to be able to pay full salary the next time. We are surprised at this action of theirs.”